A forum for discussing matters of moment, from a curmudgeonly perspective. (The ideas posted here do not necessarily represent those of any organization with which I am a part). Rude and insulting remarks will not be published, but civil disagreement is welcome.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

This page was not letting me see or publish comments for a long time. Don't think I was snubbing you--although I publish what I want since it is my page. I will try to get to the comments soon. Quite a few have stacked up. It is not my fault, really.

Mr. Cohen has written perhaps the definitive overall biography of the inimitable Duke Ellington, whose larger-than-life life resists easy interpretation or apt commentary. Cohen's thesis is that Duke Ellington contributed incomparably to American culture in the twentieth century in numerous ways: through his music (of course), his views of race (a complex subject), his unique style, and his representation of America abroad. This is a felicitous unifying narrative, a way into most areas of Ellington's robust biography.

Those wanting detailed musical analysis will need to go elsewhere, since this is more a cultural and personal approach than that of a musicologist. However, Cohen understands Ellington's musical stages and his complex relationship to his nearly fifty years as a big band leader--a mark that was never equaled and will never be approached again.

Cohen spends particular attention on Ellington's finances, which, despite his long-term fame, were anything but stable. After the peak of the big bands, Ellington had to subsidize his band with his own profits. He was often in financial straights and had money confiscated by the IRS. It may be too much to ask a bona fide musical genius (no exaggeration here) to be a financial planner, but Duke might have paid a bit more attention to the details of his personal assets.

"Duke Ellington's America" is an outstanding biography of an outstanding and complex man, a man who helped shaped twentieth century America as few others have. And his indomitable influence lives on.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Blaise Pascal was many
things - a theological controversialist, a superb French stylist, an inventor,
a scientist, and a mathematician. But he is most known for being a philosopher
of the heart. ‘The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing; we know
this in countless ways,’ he wrote in Pensées
(or Thoughts, 1670), his unfinished
book commending Christianity for skeptics. Given this and other references to
the heart, many take Pascal to be an early religious existentialist, who, like Kierkegaard, disparaged reason and
opted for an emotional leap of faith. One can only wager that God exists for
the sake of what can be gained by believing in God if God does exist. This
common description is a bit of caricature. The truth is more interesting.

Pascal was possibly the
greatest mind of his day, despite a frail constitution and chronic pain. His
mathematical and scientific abilities were prodigious and well known, sparking
the envy of the older and eminent philosopher René Descartes. Pascal’s scientific research proved that, against
received opinion, nature did not abhor a vacuum. He designed the first working
calculating machine in order to aid his father in assessing taxes. He also
engineered the first mass transit system to help the poor of Paris.

When Pascal discussed
religion, he did not put aside his exceptional intellect or deny the power of
reason. Instead, he employed a variety of arguments in support of Christian
faith, despite the fact that he disparaged traditional arguments for God’s
existence as too abstract and generic. (He distinguished ‘the God of the
philosophers’ from ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’.) Some of his most
searching and memorable lines come from his reflections on the human condition
contained in the fragments of Pensées,
which were written with the skeptic’s doubts in mind. Speaking for the baffled
skeptic, he writes, ‘Why have limits been set upon my knowledge, my height, my
life, making it a hundred rather than a thousand years?’ Pascal wanted the skeptic to be puzzled
by his own contingency and to seek out answers to these riddles.

Pascal addressed this
sense of cosmic wonder by delving into the condition of the one wondering.
‘What sort of freak then is man! How novel, how monstrous, how chaotic, how
paradoxical, how prodigious!’ This polarity at the heart of humanity - or
‘greatness and misery’ - is both troublesome and resistant to simple
explanation. Humans
are neither angels nor beasts; neither entirely praiseworthy nor entirely
blameworthy. They are, rather, enigmas to themselves.

Finding no consolation
in human philosophy, Pascal appeals to biblical revelation to solve the riddle.
We are great by virtue of our origin as God’s creatures, made in the divine
image; we are miserable because of original sin. Pascal believed that the
evidence for both propositions was abundant once one took them seriously.

Pascal presents this
case as an argument for Christianity, but he realised the limitations of
unaided human reason. Therefore,
he attempts to strike a balance between conceiving Christianity as either an
airtight rational system devoid of mystery or as a dark mystery that escapes
understanding entirely. Nevertheless, there are
‘reasons of the heart,’ or first principles, which can be known intuitively.
These include mathematical, common sense, and religious beliefs.

Pascal realised that
some skeptics would not be convinced to embrace Christianity by evidence or
rational arguments alone. Therefore, in the famous wager argument, he appealed
to the eternal stakes involved in Christianity’s truth or falsity with respect
to one’s belief or unbelief. The wager is not an argument for the existence of
God (which the hardcore skeptic would reject), but rather concerns situations
where one must make momentous prudential decisions under conditions of
uncertainty. Pascal challenges the unbeliever to believe in God, despite the
lack of proof, because of the infinite gain (heaven) that accompanies belief if
Christianity is true. There is little for the believer to lose if Christianity
is false. On the other hand, there is much to lose if Christianity is true and
one fails to believe (the loss of heaven). A terse fragment outside the longer
wager fragment captures the essence of this proposition: ‘I should be much more
afraid of being mistaken and then finding out that Christianity is true than of
being mistaken in believing it to be true.’

Therefore, Pascal
advises the unbeliever to become a believer by engaging in certain religious
practices that may result in belief and the eventual beatitude. But Pascal
thinks the skeptic can in this way find certainty; it is not brainwashing. He
may find ‘reasons of the heart.’ Pascal does not offer the wager as the essence
of faith, but as a step toward truer faith.

Because of the
fragmentary nature of Pensées, interpretations of the wager (and other
arguments) differ, but readers of Pascal will, nevertheless, find themselves in
for an intellectual adventure.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

The Christian worldview is not proven in one or two strokes, but is rather verified by appealing to a wide and compelling variety of converging arguments. Christianity is shown to be the best explanation for origin and nature of the universe as well as the human condition and the facts of history. Moreover, Christians must be pastoral in their apologetic practices. We must care deeply for the lost, not simply desire to defeat their arguments. The stakes are too high for apologetic one-upmanship. - Douglas Groothuis

Saturday, April 06, 2013

1.If
Darwinism is an adequate account of the biosphere, then human beings have no
essential nature, since they evolved without design into their present forms.

2.If
(1), then various races of humans may be more evolved (that is, more adaptively successful) than other races. Darwin
himself states this in The Descent of
Man.

3.If
(2), there is nothing intrinsically valuable about the human race as a whole. That is, some races may prevail upon
other races given their selective advantages due to their unique evolutionary
path.

4.If
(3), then there is no philosophical basis for the claim that humans qua humans have objective and universal
human rights.

5.But
(4) is false. Our moral intuitions and the history of Western law treat every
human being, irrespective of race, as possessing intrinsic human dignity and
must be treated as such. The United Nation’s statement on human rights affirms
this, for example, as does The United States Declaration of Independence: “All
men are created equal.”

6.Further,
if (4) is true, then we have no objective basis to morally condemn the
enslavement or even eradication of the “less favored races” (Darwin’s term).

7.But
(4) is false, because of (5).

8.Therefore
(6) is false because of (5)

9.Therefore,
(1)—Darwinism—is false. This is by modus
tollens, which in this case is a reductio
ad absurdum (reduce the claim to absurdity).

Thursday, April 04, 2013

to know the word that sustains the weary.He wakens me morning by morning,wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed. --Isaiah 50:4.

This passage is from one of the servant songs, which presage the coming of the Messiah, Christ Jesus. Since his followers are called to walk in steps, we too should learn how to be instructed by the Sovereign Lord to have a "well instructed tongue to know the word that sustains the weary." We need to learn this from God, considering the perfect example of Jesus, who comforted the afflicted.

The chronically ill desperately need a word that sustains the weary, for they are so terribly weary--weary of doctors, tests, medicines, the misunderstanding of friends of family; weary of broken dreams, broken relationship ships, bodies that betray them, weary of life under the sun and east of Eden. Instead of hearing words from "well instructed tongues," they too often her from tongues on fire with anger, impatience, unkindness, and simple ignorance. This compounds the chronic misery and tempts them to despair.

Here is a word to the well: Consult the Sovereign Lord for words that sustain, nourish, and encourage the weary. This is a skill that needs to be learned in the crucible of other's suffering. It is neither fun or easy. But it is necessary to show love to those suffering in ways that most of us can scarcely understand. "Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one shares its joy" (Proverbs 14:10).

Instructed words to "the least of these," the brethren of Jesus, are words of love, from the God of love. As such, they are patient and kind, neither rude nor self-seeking; they persevere under pressure and do not fail (I Corinthians 13).

Please ask God, the God of all comfort, the Sovereign Lord, to give you a "well instructed tongue that sustains the weary. This requires heart-work, since out of the heart, the mouth speaks. But God can enter deeply into the hearts of the meek and humble.

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About Me

Nothing on this blog represents the position of Denver Seminary. I am a Christian, philosopher, teacher, writer, and preacher, who is Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary. My most recent of my twelve books is Philosophy in Seven Sentences. My magnum opus is Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith (InterVarsity Press, 2011). I have published ten others, including Truth Decay and On Jesus. I direct the Christian Apologetics and Ethics MA program at Denver Seminary.